A wide variety of devices have been applied to automatic transmissions of vehicles to attempt to avoid dangerous situations. An example of a dangerous situation is the possible unexpected and sudden acceleration of the vehicle. In order to avoid this and similar dangerous situations, a shift locking apparatus or a key locking apparatus has generally been used as a device to lock the transmission into or out of a particular setting.
The conventional shift locking apparatus allows a shift lever to shift from a ‘park’ position into another position in the speed change range only when the brake pedal is depressed. The conventional key locking apparatus allows the key for starting the vehicle to be withdrawn from the key slot only when the shift lever is in the ‘park’ position after the key is turned into the off position. Typically, an electrical driving apparatus, such as a solenoid or an actuator is used to lock the key into the ignition while the transmission is not in ‘park’. A key locking apparatus is generally installed separate from a shift locking apparatus.
In general, the conventional shift locking apparatus and key locking apparatus are designed to operate electrically. A drawback with this design is that an actuator, as a main component in the respective apparatuses, is expensive, increasing the overall production cost of a vehicle. Furthermore, another drawback in that because the actuator is operated by electricity, the actuator cannot be operated when the battery of the vehicle is not sufficiently charged. Still further, the key locking apparatus and the shift locking apparatus are typically operated independently from each other. Therefore, another drawback is that the number of components of the vehicle is increased, thus production costs and assembly time are increased and the overall production process is complicated.